Security officer is one of the rare jobs that’s experiencing higher-than-minimum-wage pay and steady wage growth. The goal of your security officer cover letter is to help you get your foot in the door so you can get an appointment for an interview. Because you have to rely on a piece of paper to get you noticed, it's important to make each word count.

We partnered with experienced resume writers to craft an interview-winning cover letter as a guide for you. Our security office sample, partnered with our heavily research list of keywords and action verbs, can help elevate your application over other job seekers.

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Sections of a Security Officer Cover Letter

The most common sections you’ll see on a cover letter include:

Sezioni curriculum

Start your cover letter with your name and contact information, including a professional email and a good phone number where you can be reached.



    Personalize the letter by addressing it to the hiring manager or name of the recruiter. For security officer positions, this is normally the head officer or human resource manager. You can normally find the heads of these departments by searching a company website for an "About Us," "Meet the Team" or "Company Directory," webpages. Those pages will feature both employee names and formal titles.



      Introduce yourself briefly, explain how you heard about the position and detail why you think you'd be a good fit for the security officer position. The goal of the introduction is to grab the attention of the hiring manager by solving their hiring needs with your experience. If you have an example of previous experience that matches the job needs, introduce it in this first paragraph.

      Our sample applicant, Zahara Coble, does this by highlighting her strong dexterity, and ability to stand and patrol for long periods of time.



        The body of your cover letter should build on the previous example and detail your familiarity with security and loss prevention procedures, any certifications you've received and past experiences. While many companies offer on-the-job training for their security officers, it can help if you have past military or law enforcement experience.

        Ms. Coble accomplishes this by fortifying her patrol experience with examples of surveillance, crime prevention and decision-making abilities. However, you can one-up her cover letter by using quantifiable metrics on your application. Use an example of a situation where your keen attention and fast responses stopped a crime, like noticing freshly broken branches, calling authorities and helping prevent a crime that saved your company financial assets.



          Always thank the reader for their time and invite them to contact you with questions, or schedule an appointment for an interview. You can also provide them with a date and time you plan to follow up with a phone call.



            Include a simple closing like, "Best regards" or "Sincerely," and sign your first and last name. Security officer cover letter examples can provide formatting tips.



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              Make Your Cover Letter Stand Out

              Strong action verbs provide an excellent way to detail your skills and experience in a quantifiable way. Power words like conducted, evaluated, investigated, maintained and supervised make it easier to envision past experiences than statements like "I did" or "I had."

              Pick two or three instances where your past experience best relates to the job description and expand on them, such as:

              Maintain: Maintained a safe and secure workplace of over 300 employees.

              Investigate: Investigated and solved instances reported by employees during work shifts.

              Receive: Received security officer training and certification at a local trade school while working for a company with over 500 employees.

              Conduct: Conducted regular and thorough patrols, especially through areas especially designated by supervisor.

              Evaluate: Evaluated the severity of each potential security threat and generated detailed reports.

              Importance of Using Security Officer Job-related Keywords

              Every job description includes exact keywords of what the employer is looking for. For security officers, top words include security, surveillance, alarm, ordinances, equipment and management. These keywords must be included in your cover letter to get past applicant tracking systems (ATS) or hiring managers, who typically spend no more than six seconds scanning through letters. To find these keywords, read through the job description and highlight required job qualifications or any tasks with special features like bold or underlined text.

              For example, if an open job posting repeatedly asks for security licenses or a DPSST license, bilingual skills, and strong observational skills, you might want to write something like "Successfully obtained my Unarmed DPSST Certified Security License for the state of New York within my first attempt. Within my first 6 months at my previous posting, I reduced break-ins and financial loss incidents by 83% due to a combination of strong observational skills and quick response times, saving my company in insurance premiums and delayed shipments."

              Pair these qualifications with your own past experiences and skills. The more keywords you can use, the better your chances are at getting the job.

              For example, if a

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              Match Your Security Officer Cover Letter to a Resume

              Your security officer cover letter and your resume work together to introduce you to a potential employer and show off your communication skills, experience and training. Many hiring managers look for consistency between the two documents. While you want to expand on items in your resume, you don't want to include totally new information. For this reason, it's important to craft a new cover letter for each job to which you apply.

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